Tips for Baby Boomers in Business: * Startup marketing * SEO copywriting-content * Online marketing trends
I wasn't going to blog any New Year's resolutions - and I'm still not going to - but I am breaking my rule of always providing original content, because I found these 7 Truths from Scott Ginsberg (NametagTV.com) that I really must share.
Many of us have already quit our cozy corporate jobs, and probably need to be reminded of these 7 Truths. They're not easy, and only a few of us actually have them all mastered when we go out on our own. But some of us are divers and some are toe-dippers. We'll all get there in good time.
Click on the link below to read Scott's full article:
It's probably easier than you think to make a mistake in choosing your online marketing keywords. Most people assume that the knowledge already in their heads is enough to target the best search words. It's a common error, forgetting to get into the mindset of your client or customer, but top marketers do the research that gives insights about how best to serve the customer or client.
The most important thing to know about keywords is which ones are already being searched for the most often.These will be the words you choose from, rather than the ones in your own head. After all, you want the greatest number of new online searchers to find their way to your site. However...
Another important consideration is: Who else is using the same keywords as you?Your choices could have you going up against bigger businesses with flashier sites and more ads. In that case, you would be wasting your effort -- and if you are doing a pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign, also wasting your money.
When you analyze it, your small business needs to find its search engine opportunities in areas that relate to your business without putting you up against 10,000 of your strongest competitors!
So, somewhat counter-intuitively, your small business marketing plan will not employ the keywords that were searched 200,000 times last month. That "niche" is full to bursting. You'll be better off using keywords that 2,500 - 5,000 people searched for last month, niches that are not 100% saturated by your competition.
Another important thing to know is that keywords are often comprised of more than one word:e.g., "small business marketing," rather than "business." When you research keywords, look up as many of these keyword phrases as you can think of. Savvy use of these key two- and three-word phrases can greatly improve your success rate.
Once you have determined a set of keywords that should work well, make sure they appear in your page content in various ways:
First, they are most easily found by the search engines in your headings and bullet points.
Next, they should be sprinkled in your textual content as well, of course, but not in suspiciously high concentrations. This can be offputting to both search engines and visitors.
Use them in your tags, page names (for example, don't title a page "homepage" -- work in a keyword, such as "eye care" or your band's name) and in your site's name (as in "alternative-medicine.com").
Most important of all, never become complacent.Update your keyword research every month or two to be sure you're competing in the right niche. Also, study your Web analytics (e.g., SiteMeter, Google Analytics) carefully. Which keywords increase traffic to your site?
A social marketing plan is part of your overall marketing strategy, and as such must be tailored to your specific needs. But various forms of social marketing can eat up a lot of your time unless you carefully target your goals. In order to do that, you’ll need to:
1.Create a presence.
You can do this at no cost. Linked In, the social site for professionals, is a good place to start, precisely because, besides giving you a free page that links to your Web site and blog, it is fundamental to establishing your credibility yet, once set up, does not require much in the way of updating.
The exercise of setting up your page is much like writing a resume – not much fun, but worth the effort. In addition to trumpeting your experience, the site helps you learn to pack a lot of information into very few words by answering the question, What are you doing? As you answer – and update – this question, be sure to use your keywords.
2.Make a schedule you can stick to.
Remember to make a schedule for tweeting on Twitter.com – both because you don’t want to forget and lose your online presence, and because you don’t want tweeting to be the only thing you accomplish all day.
3.Provide good, engaging content.
Always be brief, direct and casually friendly in your marketing communications. Try to be as helpful as possible, and remember that the magic words are “you” and “free.” Dishware, toasters and matchbooks are so last century – so find something you can give away instead, even if it’s only a daily factoid, an interesting llink, a monthly eNewsletter, a quantity discount or a limited time offer.
A large part of marketing is getting into the customer/client mindset. What are your Web site or blog visitors searching for? What is the problem you can solve for them? If you go there, your marketing communications will be more successful.
4.Do your keyword research.
A good way to get into the customer/client/patient mindset is to use a keyword tool such as Google’s (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal). The exercise of finding out what people are searching for will go a long way toward answering the question: What do your visitors need? (More about keywords in a future post.)
5.Be consistent in your delivery.
Get your social marketing plan in writing and refer to it frequently – at least weekly – to be sure that your efforts remain in the category of “effective,” and don’t slop over into the zone of “inefficient time-eaters.”
Tweeting, like blogging, takes a real commitment to refreshing content and establishing a strong online presence. So, why not do these activities together? When you complete a blog post, tweet a link to your post with an inviting short statement (e.g., 10 Ways to Maintain Good Health + url). Likewise, your blog can provide ideas for more tweets.
A good rule of thumb is 2-3 blogs per week, with the best days to post being Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. It’s also valuable to reply to other tweets and to retweet interesting tweets for your followers, as well as to comment on other blogs and tweets. For twitter, you really need to spend a few minutes each weekday. If you have someone who can handle tweeting for you, then the guideline is “the more, the merrier.”
Once you get beyond the newness of social marketing activities, you’ll see that connecting to people in this way can be very enjoyable, especially when you elicit responses, and you’ll receive at least as much as you give.
Tips for Baby Boomers in Business: > Startup marketing > SEO copywriting/content > Online marketing trends
You wear many hats, and your time is valuable. You can't spend time twittering like Ashton Kutcher or Roland Hedley. How should you use social marketing, and what should your marketing plan encompass?
If you're a solopreneur, very-small-business owner, health care or arts professional -- your social marketing plan needs to be: carefully thought outsimplebrieftargeteddoableconsulted regularly. My advice is to begin with the basics -- ignore Facebook for now, set up your profile as an expert on LinkedIn, and start using Twitter, sending a regular e-mail newsletter and blogging to stay in contact with your clients/customers/patients/fans.
1. Begin with your client list.
This should include not only family and friends, but also colleagues and acquaintances. Stretch out your circle to include even slight acquaintances, secure in the knowledge that your social marketing plan's goal is to stay in contact and nurture relationships, not to bother people with spammy ads. If you're a health professional, you may never have collected your patients' e-mail addresses -- they will feel flattered that you want to stay in touch.
This is the basis of your bona fides as a business person or professional. You are the expert. This is where you explain precisely what you are doing: what your specialty is, and how you can be contacted. Be sure to pursue the Recommendations feature. LinkedIn will show you who you already know on the site, and you can write recommendations for these contacts. People usually reciprocate and recommend you back.
Use your business name. Be sure to fill in your location and bio so that people can easily search to find you. Follow other companies in your business to see what your competition is doing. The most important thing is to establish your presence, and your value, by actually twittering. Don't just read what others write.
4. What to tweet.
Here's where I disagree with common practice. It is common for twitterers to send personal tweets about their day, as in "I was out running with my dog on the beach this morning." Who cares? These are, for the most part, boring, useless tweets, and they'll clutter up your followers' pages. Visit Mashable and follow their tweets. They always provide a friendly face and useful, usable information, or what we call good content. This, I think, is the prime directive.
5. Learn to Bit.ly or Tiny URL. To add value to your tweets, add a link -- to your blog, to a Web page you find interesting and on-topic, to a home or landing page...to good content. To save room for your tweet, shorten the link's url by signing up on http://bit.ly or http://tinyurl.com, copy your chosen link into the box to shorten it. Bit.ly allows you to tweet right from its page, then provides information about how many people clicked on your tweet's link.
These are the basics with which to begin. In subsequent blogs, I'll cover more details about your social marketing plan.
Tips for Baby Boomers in Business:
> Startup marketing
> SEO copywriting/content
> New (targeted) online marketing trends
What are the most important qualities for small buinesses?
1. Produce Results.
In your small business or practice, it's results that matter more than anything else. According to business consultant Nancy McKinstry, CEO of Wolters Kluwer, a consulting firm based in Holland, no matter how much clients or customers like you and trust your capabilities, you must demonstrate that you can produce the order, treat the ailment or put on the show.
2. Determine Your Direction.
The second thing you must have to thrive in business is direction. Set a direction for your business from the outset, create a plan, and get engaged in it. In a sense, what your business is, is who you are, so invest yourself fully and revel in the experience.
3. Develop Perseverance.
Ms. McKinstry also says that, because perseverance is so important, if you can find your way around or through the obstacles you encounter along the way, and keep moving ahead, that's just the quality you need for success.
4. Overcome Adversity.
Nobody drives straight forward all the time -- in setting up any business you’re going to be confronted with challenges. To persist when things go wrong is vital to your ability to survive and grow. What do you learn from adversity and setbacks? You find, McKinsky points out, that you're able to fall down, dust yourself off, and keep moving forward the next day.
5. Become a Problem-Solver.
Are you a good problem solver? Because starting your own business is like inviting a new set of problems into your life. But if you have -- or can learn -- a problem solver's mentality, you have a shot at reaching any level you aim for.
These are not necessarily qualities you have to have before you begin a business, but to consciously set out to master them is one of the best ways to keep yourself from becoming discouraged and giving up when the going gets tough.
Health, Arts and Small Business (SMB) Professionals:
Here we are being overwhelmed by a tidal wave of innovations in technology. I don't understand what Blu-Ray means. I think hi-def TV is a little creepy. And I worry that if I got an iPhone, I wouldn't be able to learn how to use it or its 10,001 apps. (I test drove a Prius once, and it's lack of "normal" controls made me feel like the car was controlling me instead of the other way around.)
Yet new technologies are transforming how business is done. And I guess the good thing about the Great Recession is that, because many of these new technologies are easily accessible and low-cost, it forces us to take advantage of them -- and rely on our own creativity -- sooner rather than later. Small business loans just don't exist right now, and costs must be cut, but marketing must continue.
1. Social Networking:
Certainly Twitterand Linked In are easy enough to use for marketing purposes. When I complete a blog post, I "twitter" about the topic and include a shortened link (see http://bit.ly/) back to the blog. This establishes me as a Twitterer who delivers helpful content on a certain topic. Meanwhile, back at the blog, I have attached a couple of Twitter gadgets: a button that encourages blog readers to follow me on Twitter, and a sidebar containing my latest Twitter topics.
Linked In helps me network with other professionals, and my profile contains a link back to my blog. I can also post a short "What I'm doing now" message that can attract searchers through my use of key words. Also available on Linked In is box.net, which allows my co-writer, a doctor, to share files with me as we write a book together. And as we write it, we are contantly sharing that fact with our followers, to build interest in our topic.
2. Images, Film, Video:
I was especially interested in Thomas L. Friedman's recent column in the New York Times, "The Do-It-Yourself Economy." At the same time that marketing budgets are squeezed, some easy-to-use Web sites allow the SMB do-it-yourselfer to enhance a blog or Web site with photo images, illustrations and videos from istockphoto. Check out the "Dollar Bin" -- you may find just the right images to spruce up your site.
3. Podcasts, Music:
If you're like me, you may think adding audio to your site is too "techy," but here are a couple of sites that make it easier. If, for example, you'd like to podcast on a topic that will interest your following, start with a script. Write it yourself, or use box.net to co-write it with a colleague. When the script is to your liking, visit voices.com to select a professional narrator. Instead of you spending days or weeks re-recording every time you make a blooper, a specialist you select in a bidding process will e-mail you a professional audio within hours of your request.
If you make a film or video, you may need a soundtrack behind it. Some sites even play an ambient tune or sound to welcome visitors. For example, when you land on a writer's site, you may hear the sound of typewriter keys clicking. Available downloads at audiojungle.net include music suitable for business videos, ads and Web sites. Some of the tunes play a loop, and all of the ones I tested were of high quality. A typical price is $12.
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